


Same Shit, Different Day

by deliriumbubbles



Series: Runaways [5]
Category: The Venture Bros
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Blood and Injury, Gen, Major Character Injury, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 02:29:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16232372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deliriumbubbles/pseuds/deliriumbubbles
Summary: Brock is tasked with taking out an annoying upstart vigilante by luring him into the OSI.  He wins the battle at a high cost.





	Same Shit, Different Day

**Author's Note:**

> Divergence after Season 7.

Brock had killed 19-year-olds before.

 

Hell, given the bedrock-low standards of the Guild, he’d probably offed more than his share of pubescent manboys in stupid spandex costumes. Any number of kids that shrieked in pain because they didn’t know the value of letting out a roar (if you _had_ to cry out at all), just to scare your opponent.

 

But none of ‘em had ever said, “B-brock… It’s okay.”

 

There was no reason the kid should know him. Not beyond the handful of interactions they’d shared, during most of which the kid showed Brock how freaking smart he was by taking on a strategy of damn near avoiding every blow like the slippery little shit he was. Whoever’d trained ‘im had stressed evasion over direct attack, and they’d done a pretty good job.

 

It didn’t make a whole lotta sense _why_ anyone would train him like that. The kid was also so strong that Brock had seen him rip a door off its hinges one-handed. He’d also literally tossed Brock across a room like a ragdoll.

 

But nah, this kid didn’t like to fight. He didn’t hit OSI ops head on, never threw a punch, didn’t kill when he did fight, and ran away when he could without comment or shame. He only used his powers a handful of times that Brock had ever seen. Until tonight. Until they’d captured the Widow as bait.

 

Until Brock had his first real, one-on-one tangle with the kid. The OSI called him the Red Hammer, on account of the bit of tech he carried on his belt that transformed from a small cylinder of metal to a pretty damn heavy melee weapon. And also the dark red and gray outfit.

 

Anyways, Brock had been pretty keen on taking this kid out after letting him slip away before. He’d knocked the kid’s arm outta its socket and thrown him with enough force to crack ribs and maybe some skull, but the kid was Teflon. Nothing fucking stuck to him. Or maybe he healed himself or something. But Brock knew, and OSI knew, how you deal with freelancers like him. Grab someone he cares about, and they don’t put too much thought into it after that. Put someone he loves in danger and all those smarts will evaporate like a fine mist in the Arizona desert.

 

The fight lasted longer than Brock had expected. Slippery as ever, the kid was determined to get past him to help his friend. But in the end, it was all the same. Even the speech Brock gave was the same, as he sunk his knife into the kid’s back, just missing his kidney and spleen. The sparse fabric under his costume gave way to the knife; clearly, it had been made to stop bullets instead of knives. If there had been a real grown-up among those child vigilantes, he’d’ve told ‘em that they needed better protection.

 

Red Hammer didn’t scream as the knife entered him. He didn’t roar or whimper. There was just a high-pitched gasp, and as Brock told him what had happened, told him not to move, the kid let out a defeated noise. Then, he turned his head, just slightly, to look back at Brock, and said those words:

 

“B-Brock, it’s okay… You didn’t… didn’t know me.”

 

But Brock _did_ know that voice. He’d heard that voice nearly every day of his life for sixteen years, graduating from babble to giggles to rambles about books and how stuff was made, and then listened in the last year at how it changed and deepened from a boy into the prototype of a man to come. Brock pulled the cowl off the kid’s head, and sweat-soaked red hair slipped out.

 

“What the _hell_?” Brock roared.

 

Dean was pale like the underside of a toy left out in the rain. Brock’s mind tried to correct Dean’s words. You didn’t know me. You didn’t _know me_. He’d meant, probably, you didn’t know _it was me_ , because of the mask. But Brock couldn’t help but think both were true.

 

“Don’t you move!” Brock ordered. “Don’t you dare!”

 

“Okay.”

 

His voice was meek. Maybe it was Brock’s imagination, but Dean sounded so young. He _was_ young. He was young, and _stupid_ , and trying to save the friend they’d taken expressly for the purpose of making someone very _young_ act very _stupid_.

 

Brock laid him down gently, trying not to think about Dean’s blood soaked into his clothes, or how Hank was going to react to this, or how long Dean might really have. That kid had always been a bleeder like his dad. He had his kidney again, right? They’d rebooted the boys again after that idiotic time down in Mexico when Doc had lost both of his somehow…

 

Abruptly, Brock stopped at the door. A slew of agents stood before him, ready to take in this upstart pain in the ass. He turned back toward Dean, who lay so still on the floor that Brock thought for a second that his own heart had stopped.

 

Brock had killed a lotta kids. If he didn’t turn around—right now—and kill some of his friends and his mentor, he would have to live with having killed one of _his_ _kids_.


End file.
